Posted by Odysseus from clwfl2-13.gate.net (199.227.33.76) on March 31, 1998 at 02:47:29:
Guys,
I've been silently watching you guys progress on this project, wishing there was some way I could help (but I don't know how to program), getting excited as progress has been made at a much faster rate than I think anyone here would have ever imagined! I think you've come to a point now where everyone must be very careful about what is being done or "leaked-out". Over the last few days there has been much talk of opening "beta testing" etc. I think it would be much wiser to consider a "closed" Beta test as appossed to an "open" Beta test. What do I mean by this? I think that in order to legally protect all of us who have any access to this board or the files on the server to have to come to some type of "Non-Discloser Agreement" until the product is fininshed and ready for release. And that the beta testing should only be done by those of us who have access to this board.
You guys are at the point where if word got out to 3DFX that this is no longer a little applet that lets you run a couple of screen savers; this thng may pose a real threat to them. If they were to find out that games can actually be run on this, they might send so many lawyers out so fast all of are heads would be spinning! They might even try to shut down the whole website! What we're all doing by just reading the posts might be construed as some kind of conspiracy to violate their copyright. None of us here has the wherewithal to fight them over something no one will ever make any on.
So here are my suggestions: let's keep this thing quiet amongst ourselves until the product is finished and ready for release publicly. Let's forget about "recruiting" people for "Beta Testing" and just use people with access to the board. Let's not talk about this anymore on the other boards. If people post ask how things are going? Let's just say, "That it's still being worked on." LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS!!! You guys have worked too hard and come so far to have some idiot blab to the world about "Big RRed"! I personally would love to volunteer to be a tester for it. And I'm sure you'll be able to find enough people here to work out the bugs before realeasing it.
I'm amazed at the quality and ingenuity you've shown in bringing this about. And I'm looking foward to doing anything I can to help. I'm also looking foward to the day in the not to distant future when it won't matter that we don't have voodoos for these games and smokin' their asses when we play them! I'm just saying these things as a word of caution so that this won't fall apart when you're getting so close to making it a reality. I know this has been longwinded (I guess a lot of my posts are), but I just want to add that I'm behind you every step of the way. KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!!!!!!
Good luck,
Odysseus